Shell has sponsored a classical season at the Southbank Centre (SBC) for 2 years, and until recently this deal looked set to continue into the future. Then in January this year it became clear that the 2014-15 season would be sponsor-free: on June 8th, the Youth Orchestra of Venezuela will perform at the last Shell Classic concert.

Grassroots “actor-vist” group and Art Not Oil member the Reclaim Shakespeare Company have launched a spoof film challenging BP’s sponsorship of the British Museum’s popular Vikings exhibition. The film is modelled closely on the British Museum’s official Vikings trailer, and plays on the fact that a notorious oil company is sponsoring an exhibition about violent, ocean-traversing raiders and plunderers.

The 'Reclaim Shakespeare Company' have returned with a performance of a surprise anti-oil version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth inside Tate Britain’s newly-opened “BP Walk through British Art”. The unexpected performance took place on Sunday 19th January and was staged as a protest against the Tate’s controversial sponsorship deal with BP, concluding with a vocal parade through the gallery on a busy afternoon. It was witnessed by hundreds of gallery-goers, many of whom joined in, and by the Tate Director himself Nicholas Serota...